Except that no-one would click them. We barely click on ads tailors to our behaviour - we'll never click on ads that aren't (and we never did).

Personally I'm fine with that.

Unfortunately, if nobody pays for the content, it will go away. That's probably bad (lets leave aside discussions of how high the quality on ad-supported content is, and presume that there are people who like to read it).

That seems like the 'too big to fail' argument once used in favor of the established banks, albeit simplified.

Advertisers and bankers may be unpleasant allies and we've never wondered what life would be like without them, so let's try it and find out.